My full day's supply of Red 40

Back in March, we did a "Soda Pop Haiku" video round, from which I cut the following item…

Like Hawaiian Punch?
Tastes great when carbonated
It’s Polynesian

The answer is Tahitian Treat, a bright-red, extremely sweet soda that, yes, tastes like a rough approximation of Hawaiian Punch with bubbles. I decided not to use that particular haiku because (a) it's not the most clever question I've ever written and (b) Tahitian Treat is a pretty obscure beverage, making this question both very hard and very boring. I didn't want balled-up answer sheets pelted at my head.

But Tahitian Treat punches a few nostalgia buttons for me. Stopping at the South Orange Community Center to play foosball after school, we'd get Tahitian Treat from the soda machine that offered only weirdo Canada Dry brands, including something called Hi-Spot (cheapo Sprite). TT was all the kids' favorite; we argued over whether it was pronounced "Ta-hee-shan" or "Ta-hee-tee-an."

Tahitian Treat still exists, manufactured by Dr Pepper (Canada Dry's current parent company), though it's hard to find in the East. Yet earlier today, walking the streets of the UWS and craving sugary soda (I had something grape in mind), I popped into a bodega and saw 20-ounce bottles of Tahitian Treat, which I had almost certainly not consumed in decades. Only $1.25, which is a bargain when you consider it's imported from Tahiti (er…). It was absolutely disgusting, and absolutely delicious.

The thing is, this stuff is definitely not just carbonated Hawaiian Punch. It's got a lot more sugar (37 grams versus 29 grams), it's noticeably sweeter, and it has absolutely zero fruit juice (HP boasts its 5 percent blend, for what that's worth, along with 100 percent of vitamin C). The Tahitian Treat ingredients list:

Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preservative), gum acacia, natural and artificial flavors, glycerol ester of wood rosin, red 40

I'm fairly certain that that's the recipe for death. I mean "glycerol ester of wood rosin"? (It's a common emulsifier that Wikipedia comfortingly says "leaves the body through urine.") The funniest is "red 40": You really should never consume any ingredient whose name doesn't have a noun in it. I have no doubt that by drinking that bottle of Tahitian Treat, I had shaved a good year off my life span.

Happy drinking, everyone!